$$$$ DON'T GET HURT IN MEXICO! $$$$

Warn your friends about this one. Mexican hospitals know they gotcha if ya get hurt on their Aztlan.. Bucks. BIG, BIG BUCKS!

http://www.thepenn.org/vnews/display.v/SEC/News
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Paul Guzan (junior, criminology) waded in the clear, shallow water near the shores of Cancun, Mexico, one day during last week's spring break. Friends, drinks and sun ruled the afternoon -- until he felt a sharp clamp on his foot.

"The water was about up to my knees," he said Monday. "I was swimming, just fooling around, and I felt something pull my foot away. It felt like a steel trap.

"It was pretty shocking," he said. "As soon as it grabbed me, I started walking. When I got out of the water, I noticed that my tendons and toes were kind of hanging. And blood was squirting everywhere."

Guzan had been attacked by a barracuda, the torpedo-like tropical fish nicknamed "the tiger of the sea" for its predatory prowess. His foot was shredded, as the fish had ripped the skin away and torn through tendons, nerves and ligaments.

And his problems didn't end there.

Guzan said he was taken to a local Mexican hospital, where he was forced to wait hours for care: "They told me my insurance company was 'red-flagged' ... that I would have to pay between $10,000 and $20,000 cash before they would even treat me."

The hospital claimed that HealthAmerica, Guzan's provider, was blacklisted for not paying on an unrelated case, though HealthAmerica later told Pittsburgh's Channel 4 that the hospital was confusing it with another carrier.

"Luckily," Guzan said, "I had my parents' platinum credit card with a high limit. The owner of the hospital came down and told me my surgery would be expensive. He said, 'It will be at least $10,000 to start. If you can't do that, if you don't have that, feel free to leave and find another hospital.'"

Guzan paid the $10,000 and waited eight hours, foot wrapped and bleeding, to be admitted to surgery. The surgery, he said, took place Wednesday and also lasted eight hours.

After the surgery was complete, the hospital told him that he wouldn't be released until he paid an additional $5,000. This is where the American embassy stepped in, according to a report from Pittsburgh's Channel 4. Guzan's family began calling around to contact authorities, and the embassy intervened on their behalf.

"They faxed something over to the hospital showing them that, because we paid the deposit, they can't physically keep us from leaving," Cheryl Guzan, the student's mother, said. Consequently, Guzan was released from the hospital Friday and returned to the states that evening. He was quickly taken to a hospital near his home in McMurray, Pa., where plastic surgeons and physicians approved of the work done by the Mexican doctors.

"They said that everything looked good," Guzan said. Guzan is currently receiving antibiotics to prevent infection, but needed no further surgery upon his return to the country. He is confined to his home for at least two weeks, he said, but plans to return to his IUP classes before the end of the semester. He comes away from the experience with a few things, including blow-by-blow photos taken by his Mexican surgeons of his foot before, during and after his surgery -- inside and out. And he has a spring break story to tell, sure to rival anyone else's.

"I was thinking about getting a tattoo," he said. "Barracuda's teeth marks. Right above my foot."

You have to wonder how long this poor guy would have had to wait for surgery to save his leg had he not had a cool $10,000 to begin the process.

And at the same time how many American hospitals along the border with Mexico are going bankrupt for not having enough operating capital to cover the free medical care given to illegal Mexican migrants?

Perhaps ALIPAC should issue a press release to all college media in America warning them of the anarchy and dangers in Mexico during Spring Break?

Good idea, William. One of the networks had a teaser last night about the government "warning students" .. of having more than fun .. or something like that .. I think the story is to be on the early evening news of either ABC, NBC or CBS.

MATAMOROS, Mexico - The U.S. Consulate on Wednesday warned spring breakers that they should be safe from the drug violence plaguing the border if they don't do "stuff you would not do at home," like urinate in public - and aren't on the streets at 2 a.m.

U.S. Consul John Naland said American officials are distributing 10,000 bright yellow fliers at hotels and condominiums around South Padre Island, Texas, upon which college students will descend for spring break and cross the border to enjoy the lower drinking age in Mexico. The fliers will also be sent to border-crossing tour buses.

Naland issued the fliers Wednesday to coincide with the State Department's more sweeping update on foreign travel.

In September 2004, the U.S. consulate issued an advisory for Reynosa, Mexico, across from McAllen, Texas, warning of U.S. tourists and business travelers being shaken down by police. In some cases, the police took tourists to remote ATM machines and ordered them to withdraw money.

That advisory was superseded in January by a more strongly worded State Department alert about drug shootings, kidnappings, and weak police surveillance along the border. U.S. officials said 27 U.S. citizens had been abducted along the Mexican side of the border over six months. Two had been killed.

The alert sparked an outcry among city leaders on both sides of the border, who said it would cripple the thousands of vendors, restaurateurs, disco owners and others who rely on tourists.

With trade spilling back and forth between Matamoros and Brownsville, the mayors of those two cities and of South Padre Island said they would ask the government to tone down the warnings.

Naland said someone traveling in a group to a well-known place should be fine.

"It's very unlikely that any casual tourist would get caught up in the drug violence here unless they're trying to buy drugs," he said. "Spring Breakers are adults. They're eligible to vote, they're eligible to fight in Iraq, they should be able to take care of themselves. But I would not suggest they be here at 2 in the morning."

Naland said his latest message was the same for churches that send youths to Mexico on mission trips during Easter break and throughout the summer. Churches have been calling the consulate daily, he said, worried about the young missionaries' safety.

"We're not saying don't come, not saying 'red light,'" he said. "We're saying when you do come, exercise caution."

Naland said the Spring Break tip sheet was much like one that has been issued for years for college students on trips to Mexican hotspots like Cancun and Acapulco.

The flier advises party-eager youths to avoid the same kind of bad manners one would avoid at home, such as as public intoxication, disrespectful attitudes, and "heeding the call of nature in public." The sheets include a phone number to the consulate.

Church groups are reconsidering their activities in light of the warnings.

Dexton Shores, director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, said about 15 percent of the approximately 600 groups that travel to Mexico have canceled.

"Most of the problems seem to be related to drug activity, being in the wrong places that most of our mission groups are never going to be in anyway," he said.

Matamoros, once the raging party spot of South Padre Island's advertised "two-nation vacation" has suffered since the late 1980s, when a Spring Breaker was murdered by drug dealers.

The party seemed to resume until 2002, when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks led to long waits for more thorough Customs inspections. Meanwhile, more students have been taking advantage of package deals to Cancun or the Caribbean.

This story has become the 6th most read story ever on ALIPAC. That is great news. Just so everyone knows...when an article like this one gets so many reads it shows up high and fast on the search engines. That gives it extra traffic.